ManageWP Orion Developer Diary #1

Update: There have been some changes from the time the Orion idea has originated. I would highly suggest reading the Developer Diary #8! 🙂

I’m happy to announce that ManageWP Orion Closed Beta is in full swing. We’ve received a lot of amazing feedback and solved a lot of bugs and visual inconsistencies, all thanks to our beta testers to whom we’re immensely grateful.

Let’s share a couple of stats for the past three weeks to give you an idea of what we’ve been doing behind the scenes:

You’ve sent us over 450 messages with bug reports, observations and ideas.

Our product owners turned these messages into 188 Trello cards.

Our developers took those 188 Trello cards and completed 124 of them, with another 34 are queued for development. The remaining 30 Trello cards are ideas we’re currently debating.

Some of the bugs and fixes were so straightforward that we skipped the Trello procedure and fixed them right away. This resulted in a grand total of 476 commits to code.

I’ve also compiled a list of frequently asked questions, I hope you’ll find them useful.

When will ManageWP Orion be released?

There’s no fixed date yet. As I’ve mentioned in one of my earlier posts, ManageWP does not have investors; it’s 100% owned by the team and it only answers to you, our users. There’s no external pressure to meet the deadlines, which allows us to focus on the quality of the product and not rush into anything.

How much will Orion cost?

This is still being debated. If you’re a ManageWP subscriber you know that currently different plans don’t mix on a single account (i.e. you can’t have a mix of Free, Standard, Professional and Business websites), and you have to pay (or link accounts) if you need more than 5 websites for free. While I can’t give you any details right now, the idea is to have all of your websites on a single account, with the ability to pay only for the websites that need the extra features.

How can I get in the Orion Closed Beta?

Just leave a comment below or get in touch with us on Twitter. We are very bad at saying no. 🙂

When will more apps/features be unlocked?

We’re making sure that the dashboard as well as the Client Report are working great before we move on to the next app/feature.

Will the Client Report get more love from the devs?

Absolutely! While we can’t implement right away every great idea you gave us, once ManageWP Orion goes live we will focus on further improving the functionality of the apps/features, as well as developing the security module.

My personal favorite is the ability to create a Client Report in another language – you speak English, but your clients might not; not to mention that providing them with a report in their native language would be a great demonstration of your commitment and professionalism. Right now half of our dev team is putting the final touches on the dashboard and the Client Report, while the other half is working on the new backup system, which is next up for the beta test.

Wait, did you just mention security? And a new backup system? That’s awesome!

I know, right? 🙂 I’m not going to spoil the surprise, I’m going to say that it’s going to be legendary.

Neil Patrick Harris type of legendary.

Stay tuned for the next Developer Diary coming in a few weeks time when we get into all the gory details of our new backup. In the meantime if you have any questions regarding ManageWP Orion, just write them down in the comment section and I’ll be happy to answer them!

UPDATE:

Keep track of all of our Developer Diaries from one place. We will update this list as new ones get released.You can also read the initial announcement by our CEO Vladimir Prelovac

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113Comments

staff

I moved a site to the new Orion platform and, while I realized it was in beta testing, I didn’t realize that it doesn’t yet have any functionality. Aside from creating report templates there is nothing I can do and, without functionality, I can’t provide much feedback on bugs. How do I move the site back to the original ManageWP?

marksburgess

As a previous fan of this service, I’m here to say that I am looking for a replacement. The new backup system is worse than terrible. It takes away decisionmaking power from us. The last word that I’ve gotten is that they are sticking with it, hence my search to move on. I lose two services with this failure: the alert system and the backup system because every hour as the backup system busies out the server for the first fifteen minutes, I get notices the web sites are offline…all 40 of them…then I get a notice a bit later they are all ok. A complete abuse of an alert system. So, I’ve had to turn them both off: backup and alert. Normally, my system runs under 50% for CPU load. Their planned spikes in load sent it to loads of 15 and 20. And, they decide what order that backups are done meaning a trivial site might get backed up before a mission critical one. Not good. I write here – and in the support ticket area – in hopes they will come to their senses and figure out a resource leveling method that returns prioritization to us end users. If not, I guess it’s time to take another look at InfiniteWP or similar tools. I was very happy with ManageWP and was looking forward to Orion. Not so anymore.

Nemanja Aleksic

Author

Hi Mark,

I’m sorry to hear about the trouble you’re having. There seems to be some sort of misunderstanding – the new backup system has not yet rolled out. It will be a part of Orion, and not the current ManageWP service.

The new system will actually use just a small fraction of the server resources that are used by the current backup. I can’t go publically into further details, but I’ll get in touch via email to discuss this further.

trent

Chris Edwards

Posted in the other thread, didn’t see this one. Would like to get in on this beta. Currently have 170 WordPress sites on the professional plan, really excited to take a look at orion and start learning it.

contact

raphaelfranchi

bryanjam

A word of caution: I installed the beta version (was a little surprised that the vast majority of features said ‘coming soon’ so you might find it better to wait until it’s more fully developed). Having installed it, I discovered I couldn’t access the two sites I imported to it from my regular Manage WP. I spent most of the day trying to fix it, including some help messages to support but eventually I had to uninstall it so I could continue access via Manage WP.

I’m sure it will be great when it’s finished but frankly it wasn’t worth the effort it my case. Unless you like playing about with software (which I do) and have time to spare, I’d wait until it’s ready to go.

damian-managewp

Advice Media

Nemanja Aleksic

Author

For the current ManageWP dashboard we found that the optimal number of websites on a single account is around 750 (although the decisive factor is the quality of the servers hosting these sites). For ManageWP Orion we’ve tested up to 100 websites, with noticeable improvement over the current ManageWP dashboard. I expect it will work fine with much more than 250 websites, but we haven’t decided if there will be a hard limit of websites added to a single Orion account.

brad

kingsleyfelix9

Sherry Bowers

I moved my main website from the current Manage WP platform to the Orion beta testing platform. I want to make sure I still have good backups being performed. Do you have any recommendations for something to use in the interim until the backup functionality is added to the Orion? Or would you recommend I use a different website for testing at this point.

Nemanja Aleksic

Author

Thanks!
I recommend using the current ManageWP platform for the main website until further notice – we’re conducting internal backup test and don’t expect major issues with the new backup, but we can’t make any promises. An irrelevant WordPress installation can be used for Orion testing, just to be safe 🙂

Nemanja Aleksic

knight

Nemanja Aleksic

Author

Internal Trello boards have too much sensitive information, but we plan on opening a public board at some point, most likely after the beta, to give our users a way to decide in which direction ManageWP will further evolve.

SiteRamp

stevecas

5 Fold Marketing

Alex

I think Im ready to help with testing.. Count me in please.

As some suggestion recently came in my head(tho its a long stand problem) is ManageWP needs feature of selective parts of DataBase close/export. That’s especially crucial in the case of stage and production sites. When you need deploy only some parts of database but not a content. Is there something like this going to be implemented?

admin

aaronkaltman

ellegaard

This is fantastic news! The Costumer Report’s language handling and the abillity to differentiate solutions within the same account has been my main concerns.
I use it to support client’s website, so this makes it easier for me to give them the solution that fits their situation.

This change in price will also make ManageWP more competitive compared to InfiniteWP, where the price jump gets noticable as soon aas you handle more sites thatn just a few.

tamas.ratkai

Sandra

babesking

By the way, it’s so awesome that you can decide for each site if you want to unlock the premium features, because I have more than 10 sites to manage and only half of them are really important. So I can still have all in one place.

Nemanja Aleksic

Author

ManageWP Orion is a completely separate server infrastructure with no link to your existing ManageWP account (if any). The only thing they’re sharing is the ManageWP Worker plugin – for security reasons it can only link up with one ManageWP dashboard.

Grab a couple of dev sites, move them to Orion and take it for a spin 🙂

petaqui

Please!! I want to get it, fell the new system and send feedback, would be AWESOME!! 😀
Can’t wait to see it, and please, keep the prices, please 🙁 Some of us do this as a hobby and don’t earn nothing, just invest money because we love sharing.
You are great!!

joaffiliate

Would it be possible for my account to get switched over? as i push the numbers of sites and what i try to do pretty hard, Im used to slowdowns that can even freeze the browser or computer (yes i run lots at once but not slow machines – loaded 16g ram macbook pros)… so the speed increases are a big thing as i avoid trying stuff too often due to slow issues…. Im also someone doing seo right now but with an art and design and UI background and would love to check out and comment on the new aesthetics!

joaffiliate

Nemanja Aleksic

Author

You can move your websites manually to Orion for the time being (I’ve sent you the invite a week ago). When we get to the Public Beta stage we will give you a way to switch your ManageWP account to Orion with one click.